Aaronknits's blog

It's been quite a while since I posted here too. I've been dealing with so much this winter and spring. A new daily routine that includes being at the gym at 5:30 AM leaves me little time in the day now to spend online. Add to that the endless string of lemons that life keeps throwing at me for which there isn't enough salt and tequila to keep up with (new front window, tree removal, gas tank replacement, a string of other car problems, basement floods, sewer problems, and more) leaves me desperately clinging to what very little sanity and money I have left.

On the bright side, we adopted a new Italian Greyhound. A 1 year old male named Flash. He's very playful, and our Pharaoh Hound absolutely adores him, as do we.

I've still been knitting too, with what little spare time I have. I've been doing some socks. One pair with Trekking XXL and one with Wildfoote yarn and both a very time consuming on size one needles. I only work on them when my fingers feel up to working with such small needles. I picked up a ton of cotton/linen yarn at a $2 sale a few weeks ago that I'm making shopping bags with. And I've made all the pieces of a bunny for my nephew but I still haven't gotten around to assembling them yet.

You are Mercerized Cotton.
You are always very crisp and neat. You are very playful and are happiest while outdoors in the sunshine. You are sometimes accused of splitting hairs, but in the end people find you pretty easy to live with.

I found out that I have been making my purl stitches incorrectly. My knit stitches are correct, but it seems I have been wrapping my yarn around the needle clockwise instead of counterclockwise when purling. I guess this is call the "Combined Purl" and results in a twisted knit stitch. Don't know how or why I came about doing my purl stitches this way. I swear that was how the instructions I learned from showed how a purl stitch is done. It seemed very logical and very natural for my hands and fingers to work the yarn this way (I am an English knitter).

Not a HUGE deal though since I really haven't done any flat knitting in AGES!!! Any purl sitches I do in the round are for ribbing and the knit stitch is never seen and I see no noticable difference in the purl bump on the right side of the work. Nor have I noticed any differences in my right or left slanting decreases when working in the round.

I do have several pieces of an unfinished ribbed sweater stashed in the closet, waiting for me to complete the second sleeve and seam everything together. I haven't touched it in at least six months. THese were all done as flat pieces and I guess every other row of knit stitches on the right side of the fabric are twisted. Still, no huge deal since I really do like the look of the sweater and it's such a fine guage I don't think anyone except the pros will notice, and only if they're looking VERY closely at the work. I will have to remember that when I do finish the second sleeve that I continue to do the "Combined purl" so that it matches the rest of the work.

This is the last gift. It is a teddy bear for my 3 1/2 year old nephew. This lucky bear is also wearing the first sweater I have ever completed. He's not perfect. I know where the errors are. His eyes are also a bit crooked and I could have done more with the mouth. But I think he looks just right.

These are also Christmas gifts that have been done for a while. Good ol' Cascade 220 for these and the fur was some Berroco something or other. The attached pics show one completed and one in progress.

This is the guitar "strap" I made for my best friend's daughter, and the guitar that she got for her. I based it off the "Marley's Ghost" scarf thing on Knitty.com. The links were fun and easy to make and the yarn is just good ol' Cascade 220.

I made these with some super bulky Reynolds Lopi that I bought a while ago (at half price) and hadn't found a use for. Because of it's weight I used it single stranded. I've felted the regular bulky Reynolds Lopi many times with great results and I thought I would get the same percent of shrinkage with this, but it looks like I was incorrect. They took about ten passes through the wash and one pass through the dryer to get them about as shrunken down as they're going to get and although made for a men's size 11 are more likely to fit a size 13 to 15. I didn't put much effort into shaping them while wet because I was disappointed about the size, but I think I still like the way they turned out, and they will make a nice present for my brother who's feet should fit in them perfectly. I just need to make another pair for his wife!

I finished knitting these last weekend, and ran them trough one cycle in the washer. Then it died. I had been expecting it from the sounds I'd been hearing from it, and the dampness on my basement floor in front of it. My neighbor let me run them through a cycle in her machine, and that helped, but they still needed more so I just decided to wait until I replaced my machine.

We bought our new washer Friday night and had our plumber come this morning to replace the water faucets for the washer because we discovered that they were in need of replacing (they wouldn't shut off!). So, after finishing laundry today, I threw these in for one more cycle just to finish them off.